Literature

The Today Programme – and John Humphrys – were in relaxed, easy-going mode this morning, as they discussed the thorny question of the plural of Latin words in the English language.

Humphrys, an admirable stickler for correct English language, professed not to be sure whether the single of bacteria was bacterium; and whether the plural of referendum was referendums or referenda. I suspect he has his own strong feelings but was sacrificing them on the altar of objectivity.

When it comes to the referendum question, I'd say both answers are right. Referendum is, in Latin, a rather odd… Read More

Writing isn't like the Ryder Cup. American writers don't fight it out on the fairways against British or European ones to see who's the best. There are some very bad American writers and some very good British ones.

But, still, it's hard to disagree with Alan Bennett, when he says, in an interview to mark his 80th birthday, "I like American literature more than I do contemporary English literature. I like Philip Roth, for instance. I don’t feel any of the people writing in England can tell me very much."

No recent British writer can match Roth for wit, range and skill…. Read More

Sue Townsend, who has just died at 68, was an utter original but at the same time she tapped into a literary vein that was quintessentially and uniquely British – the celebration of failure.

Not failure on a grand scale – Captain Scott, General Gordon at Khartoum et al – but the failures we all encounter in our lives: romantic, professional, familial.

Alan Bennett is a master of the form. Previous champions were George and Weedon Grossmith's Mr Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody. The failure is often presented in contrast to high-minded aims: Nigel Molesworth longing to be an astronaut at his dreary… Read More

Henry Cavill as Theseus, seen here demonstrating an unorthodox left-handed stroke using a sword for a bat in a scene from The Immortals

The new Wisden, which I haven’t yet got, has an article by the winner of the almanac’s second writing competition, Liam Cromar, who has devised a Shakespearean XI. Michael Billington, writing in The Guardian, thinks Mr Cromar… Read More

"Spring is coming. Please remember to spay or neuter your poets", a tweet from the brilliant Teju Cole – writer, art historian, photographer, and Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. I was one of 292 people who retweeted that punchy line and as Spring finally does seem to be here it entered my mind again … but along with some questioning, dissenting thoughts.

Teju Cole

One thing which has solidified in the cultural world since the World Wars (first after the 1st and then even more after the 2nd) has been a fear of sentimentality. The Victorians who established the tear-moistened handkerchief as an accessory to… Read More

It is often the little actions that seem the meanest and nastiest. The ban on prisoners in England and Wales receiving a present of books from families or friends is an example. It has been imposed by the Ministry of Justice as part of a new regime of “incentives and earned privileges” introduced last November. Apparently this would be undermined if a mother was permitted to send her imprisoned son a book which she thought he might enjoy. It would presumably apply even if the mother was the author of the book and had dedicated it to her son.

This doesn’t, as a spokesman for the Ministry has been quick to point out, mean that prisoners can’t have books to read;… Read More

Bad enough that you kill off humans in your books, but this is really beyond the pale

Tasha’s wearing mauve. Should have been my first clue, really. Mauve is one of those colours fashion designers long since relegated to collections aimed at women who don’t want their husbands to touch them. She’s nursing a warm glass of white wine, half-drunk, and looking at me as though I’ve just confessed to being a serial killer.

"A crime writer?"

"Yes."

She shudders theatrically and checks my hand for knives. "So have you ever…?"

I’m at the worst stage of writing at the moment: the bit where nothing is done. Oh, Lord, I probably shouldn’t even have said that out loud. Part of the pact between writer and editor is that they occasionally ask you how it’s going and you say, brightly ‘fine! I’m really motoring now!’ and they trust you to be an adult and admit if you think you’re going to be late, but otherwise not to scare the living daylights out of them by giving them a word count.

My word count is fairly impressive, actually. It’s only a shame that none… Read More

I blame Barbara Cartland. If the Steel Blancmange hadn’t decided to Live The Dream, draping herself over chaise longues and batting her eyelashes at terrified young-pup journalists, the world would still be perfectly comfortable with the knowledge that writers spend their lives in food-stained pyjamas with the curtains drawn. But now, I regularly see the whites of people’s eyes as they hear that I’m a crime writer and start to check about my person for sharp objects. I don’t mind this half as much as the one-syllable baby voice I bumped up… Read More